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Music & Popular Culture

This is the story of the last acrimonious days of the Beatles, a final chapter reconstructing for the first time the seismic events of 1969, the year that saw the band reach new highs of musical creativity and new lows of internal strife. Two years...

Musically, culturally and in terms of sheer attitude, The Jesus and Mary Chain stand alone. Their seminal debut album Psychocandy changed the course of popular music with its iconic blend of psychotic white noise, darkly surreal lyrics and pop...

Musically, culturally and in terms of sheer attitude, The Jesus and Mary Chain stand alone. Their seminal debut album Psychocandy changed the course of popular music with its iconic blend of psychotic white noise, darkly surreal lyrics and pop...

In August 1970 Elton John achieved overnight fame after a rousing performance at the Troubadour in Los Angeles; over the next five years he was unstoppable, scoring seven consecutive number 1 albums and sixteen Top 10 singles in America. But behind...

In August 1970 Elton John achieved overnight fame after a rousing performance at the Troubadour in Los Angeles; over the next five years he was unstoppable, scoring seven consecutive number 1 albums and sixteen Top 10 singles in America. But behind...

Detroit 67 is the story of Motor City in the year that changed everything. Twelve chapters take you on a turbulent year-long journey through the drama and chaos that ripped through the city in 1967 and tore it apart in personal, political and...

Explore Edinburgh’s hidden music heritage, plus a few of its more tuneful tall tales, with this eye-opening guide of the city’s music milestones, famous gigs, infamous incidents and colourful characters. From folk to funk, pop to punk...

In 1969, among Harlem’s Rabelaisian cast of characters are bandleader King Curtis, soul singers Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway, and drug peddler Jimmy ‘Goldfinger’ Terrell. In February a raid on tenements across New York leads to the...

“Inside The Wicker Man” is a treat for all cinemagoers, exhaustively researched and achieving a near-perfect balance between history, trivia and serious analysis. Allan Brown describes the filming and distribution of the cult masterpiece...

Lee Brilleaux, the charismatic star of proto-punk R&B reprobates Dr Feelgood, was one of rock’n’roll’s greatest frontmen. But he was also one of its greatest gentlemen – a class act with heart, fire, wanderlust and a wild...

The most famous living rock musician on the planet, Paul McCartney is now regarded as a slightly cosy figure, an (inter)national treasure. Back in the 1970s, however, McCartney cut a very different figure. He was, literally, a man on the run....

WINNER OF THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE 2018
In the 1950s and 1960s, Memphis, Tennessee, was the launch pad of musical pioneers such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Al Green and Isaac Hayes, and by 1968 was a city synonymous with...

Next year sees the 30th anniversary of The Blue Nile’s first work together. Four albums – containing a total of just 33 songs – have followed since. Yet scarcity has served only to intensify love for the band’s intensely romantic...

Sir James MacMillan first burst into prominence in 1990 with The Confessions of Isobel Gowdie. A steady stream of works has followed, with commissions from many of the world’s major orchestras.
A prominent part of his work is his religious...

Glasgow-born Alex Harvey’s career began in the 1950s when he won a competition to become Scotland’s answer to Tommy Steele (he dubbed himself ‘Last of the Teenage Idols’). He was a devoted family man but in front of an...

Described by Empire Magazine as ‘Britain’s best ever blues singer’, John Martyn was one of rock music’s last real mavericks. Despite chronic addiction to alcohol and drugs, he produced a string of matchless albums. Loved...

The book that fans of the Skids, Big Country and the Raphaels have been waiting for – a critical perspective not only of Adamson’s music and its wider cultural influence, but also the excesses of fame and how the music business really...

Harry Papadopoulos began his photographic career outside the Apollo in Glasgow, flogging photographs to gig-goers. He soon moved to London, and from 1979 to 1984 worked as a staff photographer for Sounds, for which he provided countless front...

A Whole Scene Going On covers Barry Fantoni’s working – and sometimes not working – life from his first sell-out one-man show in 1963 through his time at Private Eye and the creativity of the Sixties to 1968 when the decade of pop and...

Nothing will ever compare to the amphetamine rush of my young life and the night I was nearly buggered by my girlfriend’s uncle in the Potteries…The opening line of Stuart Cosgrove’s Young Soul Rebel sets up a compelling and...